Tending to Virginia (39 page)

The sky darkens when the wind starts, a fine whistling that makes the dry cornstalks rustle, the leaves whirl in a flash of color. There is one ear of corn in the garden, one perfect ear on an empty stalk, pink silks falling from its crown and the silks would look so pretty in her hair, tied and knotted. Her dress whips faster with the rush of wind, the train with its loud piercing whistle, smoke billowing beyond the tracks, smoke from Cutty’s Place, her grandfather’s cigar, smoke billowing from a helicopter circling the sky.

“That’s your Gram’s house right there,” a woman with long gray hair tells her, a satchel filled with corn and drink bottles over the
woman’s arm, and she points to a building that Virginia had not noticed, a flat concrete building rising three stories, gothic columns halved and propped against that flat front, a door that reaches to the second level, heavy and dark, no window. “You ought to let her know you’re here, Ginny Sue.”

“That’s not Gram’s house.” She turns to ask the woman who she is, what she’s doing here where the town has fallen apart. “Are you Tessy?” she thinks but her lips won’t move, words won’t come.

“You better hurry,” she says and bends to pick up a glass milk bottle. “Emily can’t wait forever.”

The door pushes open easily and everything is dark; she feels her way along the wall for a light switch, her other hand on the chair rail, her fingers slipping below to the familiar tongue-and-groove boards there, and there is the rusty smell of country well water, a kerosene stove and the light comes quickly, late afternoon rose light, winter light, that falls in slats from the Venetian blinds onto the wallpaper, and her hand finds that cool porcelain switch but there is no need and the light moves in patches from room to room, huge clock ticking, the dark mahogany headboard, soft quilt-covered feather bed, Gram’s shape pressed into her side. And the light moves, the breakfast room, kerosene stove, a blue flickering light through that little glass window, her clothes hung on a small rocking chair, because Gram said to dress there where it’s warm. A hog head is in the kitchen sink and Gram takes a spoon and scoops the eyes. “Don’t you be bothered,” Gram says. And Lena and Roy are on the front porch picking up the roses that people throw and David is flying overhead, sounding out a secret signal to Gram and she understands because she looks up and smiles and Gramps is in his stuffed chair with the Brer Rabbit book on his lap.

The African violets are so lush on that windowsill, the blooms reaching and stretching and she is a child at the window and she sees her mother on the street below. There is an ambulance and her mother is young and tiny like a schoolgirl, her auburn hair curling onto her shoulders as she turns slowly, tries to smile when she sees Virginia in the window, and Virginia has buttons deep in the pocket of her corduroy pants, pale blue buttons like pale blue eyes.

Gram steps in from the garden, young, her hair still dark, tied
with a gray scarf, a brooch clamped to her sweater, rolled down support hose, galoshes, the plaid cotton dress.

“Were you looking for this, Sweets?” Gram asks and pulls the ear of corn from her pocket, the pink silks falling over her hand. “Tessy said you wanted this.”

“Oh yes,” Virginia whispers, never taking her eyes from Gram until she reaches for her own pocket in that faded dress and finds the material so loose and full, her belly flat and empty.

“Gram, where’s my baby?” she asks, a dull sickness filling her chest.

“And where’s my baby, Ginny Sue?” Gram asks and looks past her to the dark frost-covered kitchen window, rolling her wheelchair closer and closer, her hair so white against that pink bathrobe, blue buttons in her open palm.

“I’ve lost it, Gram. I’m so afraid I’ve lost it.”

“We all lose things, Ginny Sue. We hold on so tight and we lose them just the same.”

* * *

“I sure hope that dogwood tree lives,” Tessy whispers and watches Hannah stand there by the bed and cry like a little girl. She can see Hannah’s hand there on her arm where there are all kinds of strange tubes, but she can’t feel it. It seems like everything worth feeling in this world is leaving her in an easy way, a way much easier than it has all come to her. “Hannah would fill the world up with dogwoods if she could,” Emily told Tessy one day when the two of them sat on Tessy’s back door stoop, dipping snuff and talking over all that had happened in their lives. “Yes, my children have always had big fine dreams,” Emily had said and Tessy realized that day that she didn’t know what her children dreamed or if they dreamed at all. And Harv, what kind of dreams did Harv ever have? It seems so long since she’s talked to Emily, so long since she felt Emily’s warm hand cupped around her own. A world filled with dogwoods, a symbol of resurrection in that cross pattern and little blood-pink marks. Emily told her that and it makes her smile now to think of it, the dogwood blossom that Emily pressed into her hand, a world filled with dogwoods and they aren’t even the kind of tree that you
have to buy for they spring up and grow wild in the woods. A world filled with them; it makes her laugh but Hannah goes right on crying and Tessy wants Hannah to go get Madge; she wants to see Madge, to talk to her. “You can’t do nothing for me,” she told Madge once, but that wasn’t the truth. No, no, Madge can do something for her. Madge can make herself a better life. If there is any love left, if there ever was any there, that’s what Madge can do for her. Madge can hold her hand like Hannah is doing and say “mother, mother,” and everything is getting so quietlike just like Emily always said she believed it would, that it all comes so quietlike. Don’t fight it. Don’t fight any more. Let the world do what’s natural for you because you are tired, too tired to fight it and come springtime the world will be filled with dogwoods, pink and white crossed blossoms that Emily will pick and press into her hand, her mind, her heart.

* * *

“Sparkie?” Virginia stands in the doorway and waits, the doll in one hand. “Sparkie, here boy,” and she thinks she hears him stirring, the kitchen, but no, he is outside; he is barking and whining, outside. She hears the dull ticking of a clock and then sounds in the kitchen, silverware shuffling. She turns on the light over the stairs. “Catherine?”

“Catherine?” comes a high mimic from below and she freezes, her hand on the railing, dusk outside the window.

“Uncle Raymond?” she calls softly and steps back from the top of the stairs. Nothing, and then footsteps, closet door opens, closes. “Uncle Raymond?”

“Uncle Raymond?” comes the mimic again and she stands, breath held, ready to run into Cindy’s room, slam and lock the door. “Hickory dickory dock,” comes the throaty whisper. “The mouse ran up the clock.”

“Please stop! Please stop!” she cries and a hand, black glove, a long silver knife, reach around the corner of the stairwell, that wingtip shoe on the bottom step.

“Please,” he says, his voice high and shrill and she stands in the doorway of Cindy’s room where she can see the hand, the shoe.
“Who is Uncle Raymond?” And he starts up the stairs, a Halloween mask covering his face, a smiling hobo face with bushy eyebrows. “There’s no one here named Raymond.”

“I know it’s you,” she whispers. “I see your Chevrolet tag.” She squats in the doorway. “Please stop,” and he reaches up and puts his hand over the tag, his other hand clicks the edge of the knife against the banister. The light over the stairs clicks off and she can see him, a shadow, coming up the steps. She is crying now, crawls into Cindy’s room, slams and locks the door. She stands by the window where the streetlight two blocks away is buzzing on, flickering. The door handle jiggles, slow at first and now hard, shaking the door. The edge of the knife is under the door, moving back and forth over the pink shag carpet. “Hickory dickory dock,” he whispers and then she hears him walk away, down the hall.

Silence and she turns on the lamp and sits on the edge of the bed so that she can watch the corner where Madge’s car should be turning any second now. Then she remembers the phone, Cindy’s princess phone, and she rushes over, dials Gram’s number but there is no dial tone, just a steady buzzing. The corner is empty, no sign of Madge’s car and when the phone rings she jumps, drops the doll to the floor. “Aunt Madge?” she screams into the receiver and there is silence. “Open the door now,” he whispers. “It’s time to open your little door.”

She places the receiver down quietly and stands in the center of the room, the doll at her feet and she hears him coming back, hears the door handle jiggling again and then it swings open and he is there, a bobby pin held in his hand instead of the knife, his Chevrolet tag on, the mask and gloves gone.

“When I ask you to open a door you should do it,” he says. “What’s wrong with you?” He steps closer. “Why are you crying?”

“You scared me,” she whispers.

“I scared you?” he asks and picks up the doll, tosses it on the bed.

“Yes,” she says, tries to laugh. She wants him to laugh, to say it was all a joke, a very bad joke and he is sorry. “That mask, and the knife.”

“What mask?” he asks and stands in front of Cindy’s vanity, stooping
so that his face appears there. “My face frightens you?” He stares at her image in the mirror. “I see the way you look at me. I know what you’re thinking.” He turns from the mirror and laughs, walks over to her. “Your mother would be ashamed of you. You worship me. Go ahead, say how you worship me.”

“Aunt Madge will be here any minute.”

He steps closer and she is trapped in the corner, the driveway just below. “When it stops, death comes and hovers, a shadow will carry you away.”

“Please, please.” She leans against the wall and slides to the floor, her foot near that little lacy parasol that has slipped from the doll’s hand.

“Come now,” he says and reaches his arms to her. “Uncle Raymond didn’t mean to scare you.”

“But you did, you did,” she says. “Aunt Madge should be here soon.”

“But I’m here,” he whispers, pulls her up from the floor and over beside him on the bed. “See my birdhouse out the window?” he asks. “Just watch the little birds.”

“There aren’t any,” she says. “I’ve got to put Cindy’s doll up.”

“The birdies are all dead,” he says, teeth gritted while he holds her there. “Their souls belong to me now. I wrapped them in clean white sheets, so slowly and gently I wrapped them. I fed the birds and they worshipped me and then when they tried to fly away, I killed them. And I see how you look at me.” He lifts her hair and stares up and down her neck and she doesn’t move, barely breathes while she stares down at the corner where she knows Madge’s car should be turning. “You are like a little bird,” he says and lets her go, laughs when she runs to the door. “Oh, you’ll never fly away,” he whispers and is there, his hand on the doorknob and he pushes her back. “I’ll wrap you in a sheet,” he says and steps closer. “But first you must worship me. First you must tell me that you worship me.” He grabs her arm, twists. “Speak!”

“I worship you,” she gasps and then she sees Madge’s car pulling into the driveway. “Aunt Madge!” she screams but he pushes her to the floor.

“If you ever tell anyone,” he says, Cindy’s hairbrush in his hand as he slaps his open palm. “Then I will take you. Don’t think you can hide, you can’t. I’ll make you worship me, bathe my feet in oils, dry my feet with your hair and then I’ll wrap you in a sheet until you can’t breathe.”

“No!” she screams, the car door slamming below, and he hurls the hairbrush into the mirror while she runs to the stairs, glass shattering.

“Oh yes,” he whispers and the front door opens and Madge is there, Cindy, and Virginia grabs hold of Madge’s arm, her sobs uncontrollable.

“Ginny Sue, what on earth is wrong?” Madge asks, Cindy’s tap shoes making a light click on the floor.

“She broke Cindy’s mirror,” he says and she hears his slow steps down the stairs. “She threw a little tantrum when I told her that she shouldn’t be going through Cindy’s things.”

* * *

Tessy Pearson stays busy all day long, working and moving, so that in these late middle years, she looks much older than most women. Her long hair is almost all gray and she keeps it yanked up in a loose bun that by midafternoon has fallen and that’s when she sits out on her door stoop and brushes it over one shoulder, stroke after stroke. “What are you thinking Tessy?” folks have always asked and it is as if her mind freezes shut, as if all of her thoughts creep way back up in her mind to hide. And they aren’t always big thoughts; she might be thinking about red ripe tomatoes and how she will hold them under the tap, turning them over and over, the bitter earthy smell going down the drain but lingering on her hands. They might not be big thoughts but they are hers and she clings to that one fact like it is the only thing that can keep her alive.

She thinks a lot these days, more and more. She puffs her pipe and watches that smoke go straight up to heaven and it makes her feel warm deep in her body. She wears those little lace-up boots that it seems she has worn her whole life and she’ll sit with her feet turned out while she whittles a little or pares apples, shells butterbeans,
whatever it takes to help her to rest. Sometimes Hannah and Madge will stop by but it seems they talk mostly to themselves, like they don’t know what to say to Tessy. It seems a lot of people feel that way about her; Lena won’t even speak her name. It seems a lot of people aside from Emily are scared of her like those school children that creep up to her door like she might be a witch; they say that she is, tell each other that she’s a witch. “She hates everybody,” a little boy had said just the other day when he brought a whole bunch of young’uns to come and stand at her house. “That’s not so,” she whispered but they didn’t hear her, didn’t see her standing there behind the curtain. “I saw her once,” the boy said. “Got long gray hair that sticks straight out and no teeth.” She had shaken her head from side to side and gone and lain on her bed. More and more that’s what she wants to do, lie in the bed and close her eyes to it all. But she has to stay busy, has to keep her mind busy, to concentrate on that ridge of pine trees that have grown so over the years, and how just beyond that line of trees is the Saxapaw River curving and winding way on out of the county where she was born, winding and twisting past Spottsville and on. When she gets in her bed at the end of the day, she wants sleep to come quickly so that she won’t lose control of her thoughts.